


Mushrooms

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Bad Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris doesn’t know what to do with the abundance of free time he has in Kirkwall. Mostly, he drinks—and gets interrupted by Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mushrooms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phdfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phdfan/gifts).



> Prompted by phdfan on Tumblr: Something with Fenris and female rogue Hawke - what Fenris does in his time off.

"There are  _mushrooms_ growing down here.”

Fenris peered over the banister. He hadn’t heard her come in, but Hawke could be astonishingly quiet for someone who enjoyed the sound of her own voice so much. At present, she was crouched down by one of the bare spots in his floor where the tile had been chipped away. Bright yellow-and-orange mushrooms were clustered between the slabs of exposed rock.

"I cultivate them," he said dryly.

"You let them do whatever they like, you mean." With one careful fingertip, she touched one of the larger spores. "Eugh. Seriously, Fenris, these could be poisonous. Oh, actually, that’s a great idea!"

He leaned against the railing, vaguely amused, while she unhooked a worn leather pouch from her belt. Empty, by the looks of it. Gently, she plucked a single mushroom and tucked it into the pouch.

"Those are my mushrooms," he pointed out.

"And just what are you going to do with them? Let them languish until they swallow your mansion?" She smiled up at him. "Come down and help, will you?"

He sighed. “Picking mushrooms does not sound like my idea of a good time.”

"And what is?" she snorted. "Drinking your way through Danarius’s cellar by yourself? We’ve already made quite a dent. Might want to pace yourself."

"I thought you were going to The Hanged Man tonight."

"I’ve already been. Can’t you tell? Don’t I reek? Oh, wait, you probably can’t smell it above the stink of rotting corpses." She smirked. "I’m starting to get a crick in my neck. If you’re not going to help me pick mushrooms, would you at least come down?"

He let out a good-natured grumble and obeyed, but not before retrieving a bottle of wine from his room. He’d started on it just before Hawke snuck in. She’d invited him along to The Hanged Man, of course—she always did—but he always suspected that she did it out of some sort of misguided pity, so he rarely showed.

This was going poorly for him, since he then endured an abundance of free time and no one to share it with, but he was nothing if not stubborn.

He handed her the bottle before taking a seat on the other side of the mushroom patch. “What do you plan to do with these, exactly?” he asked.

She took a long swig, sighed happily, and handed the bottle back to him. “Next time Varric hosts a card game at The Hanged Man, I won’t bother. You’ve got the good stuff, and you don’t even charge me for it.” Her eyes twinkled, a smile pulling up the corner of her mouth.

Hesitantly, he smiled back. “Was that a deflection?”

She shook her head, pulling up another mushroom. “Poison. I could make something new and nasty for our blades. Maker knows we could use an edge, sometimes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t take five bloody steps in Lowtown at night without being punched or stabbed or bitten.” She rolled up her right sleeve. “Look, here—I was stealthed, and someone’s mabari just came out of nowhere and made a snack of my arm.”

He rolled his eyes, got to his feet, and hauled her upright by her uninjured arm, dragging her from the mushrooms. “Hey!” she protested.

"Hawke, that hasn’t even been  _cleaned_.”

"I took a health potion, and besides, may I point out that a  _clean_ comment coming from you is a  _teensy_ bit hypocritical—”

"I don’t leave my wounds to  _fester_.”

"No, you just leave  _everything else_. And I took a bloody health potion!”

She didn’t fight him, though, for all her exasperated words. She let him lead her by the wrist to the kitchen, where there wasn’t a corpse in sight, and then she stayed seated at the rickety table while he heated water over a creaking stove.

"I don’t see the point," she muttered, petulant now, as he sat down beside her. "I mean, give it an hour and it’ll be  _festering_ again.”

"There are bandages for that," he said, a little amused by her sulking. He took her wrist in his fingers and gently turned her arm; when he pressed the hot cloth to her half-healed wound, she didn’t so much as blink.

He was halfway through the bite marks when she said, “That feels nice.”

He raised an eyebrow. She smiled—small, wan, all her bluster gone.

"Thanks," she added quietly. "I don’t, er—maybe this sounds stupid, but it’s been a long time since anyone tried to take care of me. It’s…weird. But nice."

He wasn’t sure what moved him to do it, but he squeezed her hand. “I could berate you some more, if you’d like.”

She squeezed back, her eyes dancing again. “Go ahead. I so  _enjoy_ being berated by my favorite elf.”

"You shouldn’t try to stealth through Lowtown while drunk," he reprimanded, ignoring the blush that her words provoked.

She gasped, feigning indignance. “I was  _not_ drunk.”

"Explain how a mabari turned you into a chew toy, then," he invited.

"Superior eyesight," she suggested, grinning. "No—I bet it was the stink. Can’t stealth that. Living in Lowtown is really bad for personal hygiene."

He unstoppered a poultice to spread on the now-clean wound. “My door is always open.”

Hawke snickered. “Too right, it is. The lock’s broken.”

Fenris unraveled a length of clean bandage and set to wrapping her forearm. “You know what I meant.”

"Do you have a bathtub?"

"Unless you want to haul hot water upstairs, no."

"What good are you, then?" she asked playfully. He tied off the bandage, and she pulled him to his feet. "Now come  _on_ ,” she said, tugging him back toward the main hall. “There are still mushrooms to harvest.”

The next time she asked him to The Hanged Man, he would go, if only to walk her home afterwards. Hawke was perfectly capable, of course, but she could always use another blade, and her company was…pleasant. Even when she demanded that he help her pick poisonous mushrooms.


End file.
